Terenganu Valley: Part 1 of 3

Rude Awakening
The story starts with the relief crew aboard the Deathwish waking up from cryosleep. The crew checks the ship logs and found out that the ship was attacked and damaged by the Syndicate, and the ship has landed on the spaceport of a small, remote miner and trader outpost on the planet of Kua.   The crew is nowhere to be found, but the relief crew's pilot, Ithar, is suddenly is contacted via comlink by Captain Izzaldin has given information about what had transpired a few hours since the relief crew woke up. Apparently, a firefight ensued between armed strike teams from the Zenethian Hegemony, the Syndicate, the Consortium, and the Draconite Order over the statuette of Zhar that the crew picked up from Lavim Tamm.   Wahil Sayyid, the ship's engineer, escaped the firefight with Salindre of the order into the Kuan jungle. Meanwhile, Izzaldin and Salah escaped down a sewer hatch below the spaceport, but not before Salah being critically injured in the face by a falling cargo container. Izzaldin was also seriously injured during the firefight, crushing her elbow from a blow by one of the strike teams. During this time, the different warring strike teams manage to put aside their differences to work together to lockdown the spaceport preventing Izzaldin and Salah from escaping the sewers and back into the ship to give Salah the medical attention she needs in the medlab.   With Salah having only 3 hours to live before she bleeds out, the crew of the Deathwish hatch a plan to save Salah. Hakam manages to use the ship's accelerator cannon to blast the spaceport's command centre and destroying it with some of the armed squad members inside. A firefight ensues between the ship and the several strike teams. The strike teams manage to disable the ships propulsion systems preventing it from being controlled properly by the pilot. The strike teams also manage to disable the gyros of the accelerator cannon turret preventing it from being turned. However, the pilot, Ithar manages to fix the problems, and the crew continues to provide covering fire while Izzaldin and Salah escape the sewers and back onto the ship.   They eventually clear out the spaceport of the strike teams, and Ithar manages to save Salah from bleeding out in the medbay, and miraculously gets her back on her feet and ready for action through some wizardy reconstructive surgery. Unfortunately, although Ithar manages to stabilize Izzaldin's injury, it will take 14 days to heal completely. They manage to stun and capture one survivor of the strike team, a soldier of the Consortium. The crew gets the soldier to contact his commanding officer and the crew negotiates a deal with the Consortium to take control of excavation site in the Terenganu Valley where the statuette is from in return for birr and wiping the slate clean for the supposed murders of Lavim Tamm and Merez Alcan. With the already politically tense situation between the Hegemony and the Consortium, the Consortium cannot be seen as hostile on Kua for fear of political and military retaliations to the Coriolis space station. By the Deathwish crew solving the problems with access to the excavation site, and possibly eliminating the Hegemony from the picture, the Consortium can officially wipe their hands clean from any military involvement for control to the site.   While negotiations were happening, Salah prevents the Consortium from hacking into their ships computers to locate them and disable their ship. Salah tries to send data memes to destroy the commander's ship's systems, but fails to break through their military-grade firewalls.   The crew then sets off to find Wahil and Salindre who escaped into the jungle. By plugging in the proximity sensor into the ship, they manage to pinpoint Wahil and Salindre and set a course for them.   Wahil vs. Predator
Meanwhile, alone in the jungle, Wahil and Salindre manage to create a makeshift shelter and get food. They settle down to wait for the Deathwish crew to eventually find them. While waiting, they are suddenly attacked by a wild Dirhad, a vicious predator found in the Kua system. Wahil and Salindre fight it off, and manage to keep it at bay long enough for the Deathwish to reach them. The crew opens the airlocks and fires at the Dirhad from above, while Wahil and Salindre fight the Dirhad through close combat on the ground. Wahil gets seriously injured, crushing his elbow from the Dirhad. Eventually, they kill the animal and take its carcass and store it into the cargohold of the ship.   The Deathwish crew gives the statuette to Salindre and confirm their deal with the Draconite Order. Salindre thanks them, and jumps out of the airlock into the jungle below and disappears into the night. The crew then interrogates the Consortium soldier to give information about the area. Amirah, the ship's courtesan, manages to seduce the soldier to divulge the information that the crew needs. They find out that there are 3 primary factions in the area at odds with one another: a crew of Zenethian loggers, a sogoi tribe, and the Consortium vying for control of the excavation site. The Sogoi tribespeople have been hostile to the supposed outsiders for fear that the logging and excavating has disturbed the peace in the jungle and has released evil djannas; jungle sprites, and are causing havoc to all who live in the jungle.   Dances with Wolves
The crew decides to meet the Sogoi people to see what deal they can make with them. As they arrive, they realize how primitive they are as they seem to be a pre-technology people. However, Izzaldin and Amirah correct the crew and expound how the Sogoi are Firstcome have purposely cut themselves off completely from technology of their own will. According to their beliefs, they wish to live a pure life away from the trappings of technology which has left nothing but death and destruction as shown by the Portal Wars and the countless other examples where humanity has killed each other with weapons of mass destruction. They meet Ixra, the village shaman, and Izzaldin and Amirah greet the Sogoi in their way. The crew follows suit. Knowing the signs of respect, Ixra gives them audience. The crew realizing that the villagers may provide them a cheap army to use against whomever that comes against them on the planet, they negotiate for their alliance. Ixra asks the crew to tell the loggers to stop cutting down trees in the east and the Consortium to stop excavating in the north as their disturbances have caused djannas, mystical forest sprites, to be released in the jungle and have caused numerous deaths to everyone in the valley, Sogoi, logger, and Consortium forces. Unfortunately, the logger and Consortium forces are too stubborn to believe in the supernatural and blame the Sogoi for the deaths in their own camps. The crew successfully agree to an alliance with the Sogoi and set out to meet the loggers.   Avatar-ed
The Deathwish crew set a course to the logging station and meet with the prospectors, Mustar and Herrah. Mustar and Herrah tell their side of the story, saying that the Sogoi are preventing them from meeting their quotas and ask the Deathwish crew to find a way to prevent the Sogoi attacks. The crew tries to persuade the loggers to stop their logging, but are stubborn in their ways. The crew negotiates a deal for some birr from the loggers, but secretly will double cross them and side with the Sogoi. Meanwhile, as negotiations are happening, the crew sends Salah to disable their communications area in the logging station to prevent them from sending an emergency signal to the Hegemony security forces when they attack the logging station later. Salah manages to infiltrate past a bridge of loggers and into the communications array. She successfully disables half the functionality of the array meaning that the loggers cannot send an emergency signal to the Hegemony security forces, but can receive signals. Salah manages to sneak back to the negotiating room without anyone noticing she had disappeared. The crew then leaves to let the Sogoi know what had happened to the negotiations.   Back at the Sogoi camp, Ixra the shaman now knows the worst. The crew manages to convince the village to join them to attack the logging camp in a week's time while they support them in their ship. Ixra, very reluctantly agrees to this, saying that this isn't their way, but must be done. In one week's time, the Deathwish crew and the Sogoi villagers attack the logging camp at night. The Deathwish provides supporting fire from a distance from their ship while the Sogoi warriors converge onto the logging camp. The Deathwish crew spots Mustar and Herrah, and trying to escape the attack. Mustar is seriously injured while Herrah seems to be shaken, but doing fine. They don't realize that the Deathwish was also part of the attack as the ship was providing supporting fire from a distance and in the darkness of the night. Mustar and Herrah seem to think that the Deathwish was there to save them. The Deathwish crew make the decision to save them from the Sogoi warriors to use them for information or insurance later. However, due to his injuries, Mustar cannot hold onto the rope that was let down for both him and Herrah to climb up onto the hovering ship. Herrah makes the grim decision to kick her boss off the rope and to his death while she climbs aboard the Deathwish. The crew and Herrah watch as Mustar is savagely killed by the angry Sogoi warriors as they fly away.   The Dark Tower
The crew decide to finish the job that was agreed on with the Consortium by taking control of the excavation site, but stop by the tower ruins to see what lies in it. As they land and approach the tower, they take out the proximity sensor to check for life signs. The proximity sensor, displays one green blip on its screen, and then three, and then none. While this is happening, Ithar, Sayidd, and Salah get different visions which last for a full minute even though it was a split-second in realtime. Sensing something strange, the crew debate going into the tower entrance. They eventually enter and the hallway the opens up lights up with bioluminescent lighting that leads the group down the long dark hallway into the tower.   Izzaldin notices the ancient writings on the wall and it tells a story of one of the Icons, the messenger, and his century long battle with an evil djinn. The story tells of how the djinn's evil powers had kept the planet from providing life; keeping it a desolate planet of desert and fire. The Messenger fought and trapped it inside this tower temple that it had built. The Djinn's physical form died in battle, but its soul remains encased in a mystical force field for eternity. Because it was trapped, Kua eventually became the lush jungle planet it is today. If released, it may try to take over the planet and turn Kua back into the desolate planet it once was. After finishing the story hallway, the crew eventually find themselves into an open atrium. They crew arrived to the centre of the tower with an opening above 50 feet up with ancient jungle vines covering the rest of the story of the ancient portal builders who built the temple supposedly with the messenger. In the centre of the atrium lies a 20 foot wide hole where the jungle vines continue downward into darkness. The crew finds that a thrown rock takes about 10 minutes to hit ground. This is impossible as that means the hole is about 1700km down. As the crew realizes this, a large hidden stone door closes behind them, closing off the hallway from where they came from and trapping Salah, Hakam, Izzaldin, Wahil, Ithar, and Amirah in the ancient tower.